Gender and climate change capacity strengthened

Thu, 24 Sep 2009

Forty five of Asia’s foremost sustainable development and climate change practitioners are currently attending the Asia chapter of a global capacity drive on gender and climate change convened by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA) in Bangkok, Thailand.

Photo: Béatrice Riché / IUCN

The training is based on a groundbreaking Training Manual on Gender and Climate Change and authored by the Global Senior Gender Advisor for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Lorena Aguilar, on behalf of the alliance. The training manual identifies the links between gender and climate change for the first time - a dimension that has been strikingly absent from climate talks up to now.

The Asia chapter of the training is the fifth in a series of successful workshops held previously in Europe (Poland and Germany), the United States (New York), and the Caribbean and the Americas (Grenada). Further trainings are to be held in Africa (October 2009) and the Middle East (November 2009) ahead of the UNFCCC Cop-15 to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Trainees were selected from over 1,000 applications received through a global call for expressions of interest. More than 300 submissions were received from countries all over the Asian region.

“Having met the trainees this morning in person, I am extremely impressed with the level of expertise gathered at this training. The interest our Asia chapter has generated is unprecedented,” said Aguilar. “Upon completing this course, our capacity to work on gender and climate change issues in the region will be significantly strengthened on national and local level. Women need to be part of the solution and not the victims of deficient decisions taken on their behalf. In many cases entire communities depend on them for their livelihood."

The training course focuses on the building blocks of the Bali Plan of Action (mitigation, adaptation, technology and finance) and is conducted in two parts: a three-day workshop with practitioners (Training of Trainers), followed by a half-day briefing to negotiators.

The Training of Trainers, which started today, focuses on building capacity at grassroots level, whilst the second (Briefing to Negotiators) is designed to ensure that an understanding is built of the importance of retaining gender considerations in the UNFCCC negotiating text. Currently 30 references are contained and largely the result of advocacy work done by the GGCA of which IUCN is a founding member.

“If gender considerations are not sufficiently incorporated into a new climate deal, millions of lives stand to be lost. This is due to the pivotal role women play in especially poor, rural areas most acutely affected by the impacts of climate change,” Aguilar said.